MECHANICSBURG, Pa. — Sunbury Press has released the bestsellers list for February. The Gratz Historical Society’s History of Lyken Township Volume Two took the top spot. Beagle Tales VI by Bob Ford was runner up.

SUNBURY PRESS – Bestsellers for February, 2016 (by Revenue)

Rank

Last Month

Title

Author

Category

1

NEW

History of Lykens Township Volume 2

Gratz Historical Society

History

2

NEW

Beagle Tales VI

Bob Ford

Humor

3

—

Dinorific Poetry Volume 1

Mike & Ethan Sgrignoli

Childrens

4

2

Seinsoth

Steven k Wagner

Sports Biography

5

41

Call Sign Dracula

Joe Fair

Vietnam Memoir

6

—

The B Team

Alan Mindell

Sports Fiction

7

—

The Closer

Alan Mindell

Sports Fiction

8

—

Bravo!

Guy Graybill

Music History

9

5

Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last, 2nd Ed.

Mike Campbell

History

10

—

Freemasons at Gettysburg

Sheldon Munn

History

11

8

The Sign of the Eagle

Jess Steven Hughes

Historical Fiction

12

1

Embattled Freedom

Jim Remsen

History

13

NEW

Planet Jesus #1: Flesh & Blood

Doug & Shaun Brode

Supernatural Fiction

14

NEW

Tories, Terror, and Tea

John L Moore

History

15

—

American Berserk

Bill Morris

Memoir

16

9

Living in the Afterlife

Michele Livingston

Spirituality

17

40

Cast Iron Signs of Pennsylvania Towns and Other Landmarks

N Clair Clawser

History

18

15

Pit Bulls

Anthony Julian

History

19

20

Winter of the Metal People

Dennis Herrick

Historical Fiction

20

—

OneWay: The Oracle

Robin McClellan

Supernatural Fiction

21

26

Jesus the Phoenician

Karim El Koussa

History

22

7

Warriors, Wampum, and Wolves

John L Moore

History

23

12

Settlers, Soldiers, and Scalps

John L Moore

History

24

30

Rivers, Raiders, and Renegades

John L Moore

History

25

24

Traders, Travelers, and Tomahawks

John L Moore

History

26

45

The Ripper’s Haunts

Michael Hawley

History

27

14

Pioneers, Prisoners, and Peace Pipes

John L Moore

History

28

35

Cannons, Cattle, and Campfires

John L Moore

History

29

25

The Wolf of Britannia Part I

Jess Steven Hughes

Historical Fiction

30

19

Forts, Forests, and Flintlocks

John L Moore

History

31

18

Bows, Bullets, and Bears

John L Moore

History

32

27

The Descendants of Johann Peter Klinger …

Max Klinger

Geneaology

33

NEW

Dead of Spring

Sherry Knowlton

Thriller Fiction

34

13

Mary Sachs

Barbara Trainin-Blank

Biography

35

—

Messages from Beyond

Michele Livingston

Spirituality

36

—

OneWay

Robin McClellan

Supernatural Fiction

37

49

The Devil Tree

Keith Rommel

Thriller Fiction

38

17

Keystone Corruption Continues

Brad Bumsted

History

39

34

Hour 30

Brandon Musgrave

Memoir

40

—

The Relations of Milton Snavely Hershey

Lawrence Knorr

Geneaology

41

—

The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping

William Cook

True Crime

42

—

Where Elephants Fought

Bridget Smith

Historical Fiction

43

—

Well I’ll be Hanged

Tim Dempsey

History

44

37

Indian Villages and Place Names in PA

George Donehoo

History

45

50

Digging Dusky Diamonds

John Lindermuth

History

46

—

Der Lange Verborgene Freund

John George Hohman

Spirituality

47

—

Keystone Tombstones Volume 3

Joe Farrell and Joe Farley

History

48

—

Keystone Tombstones Volume 1

Joe Farrell and Joe Farley

History

49

—

The Sea is a Thief

David Parmalee

Historical Fiction

50

21

That Night at Surigao

Ernie Marshall

History

The Gratz Historical Society’s local history “The History of Lykens Township Volume 2,” was #1 due to advance sales leading up to its release in April. Bob Ford’s humorous “Beagle Tales VI” continues a successful string of releases by the writer, took #2 thanks to sales in the beagling community. Mike & Ethan Sgrignoli’s “Dinorific Poetry Volume 1” bounced back to #3 due to author events. Steven K Wagner’s biography “Seinsoth” about the Dodger who almost was took #4 due to bookstore sales. Joe Fair’s Vietnam history, “Call Sign Dracula” was strong at #5 thanks to author activities.

About the Book:
In Ford’s sixth collection of outdoor humor he continues to strike a chord with hunters and dog lovers as he makes observations about contemporary life, often through nostalgic narratives of the simpler days of his youth (way back in the 1900’s). Ford is an award winning freelance writer, and his work has appeared in The American Beagler, Better Beagling, Hounds & Hunting, Sporting Classics Daily, and Fur-Fish-Game. He lives in the hills of Pennsylvania with his wife, Renee, and a pack of hunting house beagles.

Excerpt:
When I was a kid, there were a few January rituals that characterized most of my time. One of them was Christmas trees. Our beagle club had a running pen, and the road into the enclosure’s parking lot was plowed. People would dump Christmas trees there. I now hear all sorts of debate about the value of used Christmas trees in an overall effort to maintain a quality running grounds, as the trees are dead and will shed their needles in time, yielding Christmas tree skeletons, which are not ideal cover. Our club liked them in the winter, and the task at hand became distributing the trees over the running grounds into clumps of decent cover capable of allowing a bunny to hide from air predators.

“How old are you?” the club president asked me.

“I will be 14 soon,” I answered.

“How would you like to disperse Christmas trees around the club?” He scratched his chin.

“Where are they?” I asked.

Bob Ford

“In the parking lot,” he scratched his head. “Space them out. Make piles that are as big as a picnic table. Don’t put them on the paths, but put them in places off the feed strips that will grow again in the spring. I don’t want to be mowing Christmas trees. Stack them where the cover looks sparse. I will make sure you get a little money for your efforts.”

Now early January was still hunting season, so Saturdays were out. That left Sundays to work on this project, as Pennsylvania has never permitted Sunday hunting. I had a paper route that I had to do on Sunday mornings, but I could do this tree job in the afternoon.

“Dad, what are you doing this Sunday?” I asked.

“Working,” he said.

“How about the following Sunday?”

“Working.” Dad was serious about work, and his job did not give him many Sundays off. Once in a while the work rotation aligned with a calendar that matched up with family events. The factory where he worked did not have a work schedule that was concerned with family events. They had developed a complicated scheme that involved workers changing shifts every week while also varying the days of the week wherein an employee was scheduled to be off. This then was modified by offerings of overtime and a desire to maximize productivity.

About the Book:This fifth installment of Ford’s short stories mixes a love for the hunt and a thorough appreciation of the beagle as a cherished pet. Whether he is navigating the wild lands looking for rabbits or the wilder terrain of human relationships, the author is always looking for the important things in life, and casting them in a humorous light. Beagles and rabbit hunting are featured prominently in these collected assays, although the tales of the hunt are often a medium to tell a more profound story. Laugh along with his nostalgic remembrances of childhood, unique perspectives on life today, and the joys of living with hunting house beagles.

“Beagle Tales” is a registered trademark of Sunbury Press, Inc.

Excerpt:
Behold, the Rabbit
Well, small game hunting is still in season, and we can get out there and bust some bunnies. To be honest, I’m glad that the fevered rush of deer season is over. Many of the “hunters” that I know actually just go out to chase deer for the two weeks that we are allowed to hunt them with a rifle. Don’t get me wrong, I feel affinity with all hunters, but the crazed dash for antlers sometimes just makes me feel like not hunting. I try to get my deer meat in archery season, before rabbit season opens, in order to avoid the entire two weeks of rifled mayhem altogether. There is something about the sound of a half-dozen high-powered rifles rapid firing on a running deer a few hundred yards away that just makes me cringe.

Actually, I spend much of deer season walking around looking for rabbit tracks in the snow. I came home one day this year in cold weather just grinning. “Did you get a deer?” my wife asked.

“Nope,” I said, giving her a hug.

“Why are you so happy then?” She pushed her palms against my chest, ending the hug.

“I found a ton of rabbit tracks!” I said.

“Any deer?”

“Sure, there are always some deer tracks, but there were lots of bunny tracks in there.”

“Did you see any deer?” she yelled. “It isn’t rabbit season.”

“Sure. I saw deer. But man did I see rabbits. I can’t wait for bunny season to come back in!”

Ah, but rabbit season is now in full swing again, and I am enjoying the fields and woods. I prefer running in the open and the wild areas. I haven’t been to a beagle club to run dogs since the end of October, and I belong to two of them! There is something about the abandoned strip mines and the farmer’s hedgerows and the national forest that make my hounds look better than they are. The rabbits do not double back on their own trail so much, and there are no mowed feed strips for the rabbits to run. In Pennsylvania many of the clubs were formerly operated by traditional brace enthusiasts. The result is that there can be parts of the club that have more mowed paths than brush. I understand that, too, as a couple rabbits running down a mowed feed strip may be enough to run first series for the brace guys. Repeat the same path runners after lunch, and the winner can be declared. There are no mowed feed strips in hunting season.

I also like hunting season for the fact that there is no fence. Don’t get me wrong, I like having a fence at the beagle club when I am conditioning dogs, but it is sometimes a false sense of security. Fences get holes, and sometimes they get knocked down. It is roads, not fences, which I worry about in gunning season. The one thing I do miss about the club running grounds as the season rolls on to the end is the abundance of rabbits. In fact, it is for this reason that I simply do not shoot near as many rabbits as I once did. I still get over fifty in any given year, but I no longer feel a need to try and eat every rabbit the dogs chase. In fact, I have gotten to the point where I am not shooting rabbits. The old timers warned me about this. They said killing critters would get problematic for anyone that loved the hunt (continued)

About the Author:Bob Ford has lived all but three years of his life in the hills of Pennsylvania. The three exilic years were spent attending seminary at The Methodist Theological School in Ohio where he lamented the lack of topography that characterizes the central portion of the Buckeye state. He purchased his first beagle for $75 in 1985 with money earned delivering the Erie Sunday Times. This first beagle committed Ford to the company of hounds, and has resulted in a life that has gone to the dogs. Ford has served United Methodist Churches in Warrensburg, OH; Elkland, PA and Houtzdale PA. He is a PhD candidate in systematic theology at Duquesne University, and teaches philosophy and religious studies part-time at Penn State Altoona.

Bob has hunted rabbits and hare throughout the country, ranging from Northern Alabama to the Quebec border, and he is always looking for new places to hunt and new species of rabbits and hare for his hounds to pursue. He is an ordained pastor in the Susquehanna Conference of The United Methodist Church and currently resides in State College, PA. Ford believes that American-made, double barrel,16 gauge shotguns from the previous century are the best firearms available to the small game hunter, and that few things compare to the sound of a pack of beagles chasing rabbits on morning dew in a foggy valley. He writes a monthly column for the American Beagler magazine and Hounds and Hunting magazine. He has had more than 100 articles in Better Beagling, and currently writes an article each month for The American Beagler and Hounds & Hunting.

Bob Ford is an Excellence in Craft winner in humor for the Outdoor Writers Association of America (2012).

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. — Jesus the Phoenician, Karim El Koussa’s well-researched alternative Christian history, was #1, upon its debut, thanks to author events related to his US book release tour. Susan Dahlgren Daigneault’s In the Shadow of a Mountain, a memoir about her war hero father, Ed Dahlgren, and his PTSD, ranked #2 due to events and promotions in her home state of Maine.

Sunbury Press’s year-to-date sales for 2013 are up 25% over 2012. EBook sales are up only 9% over the year-to-date prior, significantly lagging the growth in print sales. Sales for the month of October were up 54% compared to October 2012. Regarding the monthly performance, it was the 2nd best month of the year and 2nd best October ever.

Bob Ford’s Beagle Tales 4, the latest edition of his folksy humorous series about rural living, debuted at #3, thanks to author events in the State College area.

Jess Steven Hughes’ The Sign of the Eagle, historical fiction set in Roman times, ranked #4 due to the author’s aggressive appearance schedule at bookstores in the Pacific Northwest.

Dennis Herrick’s Winter of the Metal People, a novel about the Tiguex War between the Spanish and the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico, ranked #5 due to regional sales in New Mexico.That Night at Surigao, Ernie Marshall’s well-researched history of the last clash between battleships in World War 2, nabbed the 6th position thanks to recent author events.

The Joe’s — Farrell and Farley — reclaimed the 7th spot withKeystone Tombstones Volume 1 thanks to continued interest in the series and their media appearances.

Robert Miller’s The Cogan Legend, a novel about a murder mystery in pre-Civil War upstate Pennsylvania, slotted at #8 thanks to author activities.

Alan Mindell’s The Closer, a baseball love story, joined the list at #9 thanks to seasonal interest in the sport.

Guy Graybill’s Prohibition’s Prince returned to the rankings, taking #10 on the list, due to sales at Williamsport area bookstores and author activities.

The company released eleven new titles during the month of October:Beagle Tales 4 by Bob FordJesus the Phoenician by Karim El KoussaDinorific Poetry Volume 3 by Mike & Ethan SgrignoliColors in the Garden by Wendy LattyColors in the Gardenthe Creator Made by Wendy LattyUndead Living edited by Thomas MalafarinaNormal Comix Volume 1 by Sean MaddenThe Crossers #1: The Man in the Mountain by Terry RayThe Crossers #2: The Circle by Terry RayThe Crossers #3: Crossing the Valley by Terry RayThe Crossers #4: Path to Armageddon by Terry Ray

For a list of Sunbury’s all-time best-sellers, please see the Sunbury Press web site:

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Sunbury Press has released author Bob Ford’s fourth humorous short story collection in the “Beagle Tales” series about beagles, hunting, family and the changing times.

About the book:This fourth installment of Ford’s short stories mixes a love for the hunt and a thorough appreciation of the beagle as a cherished pet. Whether he is navigating the wild lands looking for rabbits or the wilder terrain of human relationships, the author is always looking for the important things in life, and casting them in a humorous light. Beagles and rabbit hunting are featured prominently in these collected assays, although the tales of the hunt are often a medium to tell a more profound story. Laugh along with his nostalgic remembrances of childhood, unique perspectives on life today, and the joys of living with hunting house beagles.

Bob Ford is an Excellence in Craft winner in humor for the Outdoor Writers Association of America (2012).

Excerpt:
… As many of you may have discovered, wives are not fond of live bait in the refrigerator door, especially if the bait comes in small, round, plastic containers that resemble the ones restaurants utilize for salad dressing and other condiments. Can your marriage survive a culinary accident wherein your wife pours the leftover dressing onto her salad only to realize that her food is now covered in wax worms? This very thing happened in our house. We were able to get along just fine after all the shrieking ended. There is nothing non-masculine about shrieking after your wife throws wax worms down your shirt, by the way …